1. To keep surplus grain and other food products in one's possession, when the people in Petrograd, in Moscow, and in dozens of non-agricultural districts not only suffer from a shortage of grain, but are tormented by fearful hunger, is the greatest crime, deserving the most merciless punishment.

2. The task of combating famine consists not only in pumping grain out of grain-producing regions, but in collecting and concentrating in state reserves all surplus grain without exception, as well as all manner of food products in general. Without achieving this, it is impossible to guarantee any socialist transformations whatsoever, and it is impossible to ensure even the possibility of conducting a successful defensive war.

3. …[46]

Written in the second half of May or the beginning of June 1918.

First published in 1959 in Lenin Miscellany XXXVI

Printed from the manuscript